The present invention relates to firearms safety, and in particular to a device for use with a repeating firearm for preventing discharge of a cartridge, yet permitting the action of the firearm to be operated.
Many repeating firearms utilize replaceable magazines, which, when in place in such firearms, exclude dirt, sand, and the like from entering internal mechanisms and doing damage or causing failure of the firearms to operate properly. When the replaceable magazine is not in place in such a weapon, however, the loading mechanism and other movable parts of the weapon are exposed to contamination by material carried in the air or otherwise found in the immediate environment. While it is possible to protect the internal mechanisms of such a firearm against dirt by keeping a magazine in the magazine well, it is often desired to keep such a weapon in an unloaded condition.
Placement of a magazine in the magazine well always includes the risk that a cartridge may accidentally be loaded into the firing chamber of the weapon.
Safety is of prime importance in conducting training in the use of firearms. For the sake of safety, then, it has been the custom in the past during military training operations for firearms to be carried with the magazine removed, to prevent accidental loading of a cartridge into the chamber. Use of a weapon without its magazine, however, exposes the inner mechanisms of a firearm to contamination. Particularly when weapons are used in this manner in desert sand conditions, there is a significant likelihood of firearm malfunction during later use, unless such firearms are first carefully cleaned. Such cleaning requires an undesirably long time for readying firearms for service use after use in such training exercises.
It is necessary to be able to carry out training exercises safely, but without excessive risk of damage to weapons, and without requiring an unduly long period of time to make weapons ready for actual use after training use.
Not only is it desirable for weapons to be in a safe condition during training in their use, but it is also desirable that such a safe condition should be easily and quickly verifiable from a distance of at least several meters.
Prior efforts to provide a way to make a firearm safe from accidental firing without disassembling the firearm include a chamber plugging device shown in Robbins U.S. Pat. No. 2,997,802. The Robbins device is useable particularly in a bolt action rifle to plug the firing chamber and interfere with closure of the bolt of such a weapon. The Robbins device, however, has no provision for preventing entry of contamination through a magazine well of a repeating firearm from which a magazine has been removed as a safety measure.
McKinlay U.S. Pat. No. 3,089,272 and Hermann U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,311, disclose key-locked devices which fit inside the receivers of automatic-loading shotguns and similar automatic-loading weapons. These devices close the empty case ejection port of such weapons and prevent the bolt from closing the breech. Such devices, however, do not protect the working mechanisms of an automatic-loading firearm from which a magazine has been removed, leaving the magazine well open. Additionally, the McKinlay and Hermann devices would seem to be clearly visible only from one side of weapons in which they are installed.
Johnson U.S. Pat. No. 4,528,765, discloses an externally visible safety device for firearms which is particularly adapted to automatic rifles similar to the M-16 military rifle used by the armed forces of the United States. While this device is adequate for rifles including ejection port covers, in order to make such rifles safe, without exposing their inner mechanisms to contamination, such a device keeps the breech bolt in an open position and does not permit operation of the action of such an automatic rifle for practice and familiarization purposes.
In training personnel in the use of firearms, it is often desirable to operate the loading and empty case ejecting mechanisms of the firearm, to cock the firearm, and to practice the proper manner of squeezing the trigger of the firearm, without actually expending ammunition. To ensure safety during such practice, it is desirable to have a safety device which would prevent discharge of a cartridge located in the cartridge receiving and firing chamber of a firearm being used in such training. Without such a safety device, it is possible that a cartridge could be discharged accidentally, even though the magazine is removed from a weapon.
What is needed, then, is a safety device which will positively prevent a firearm, particularly a firearm such as a semi-automatic pistol, from being fired accidentally, even though a cartridge may be present in the firing chamber, and which will make it easily verifiable visually, from a considerable distance away from the firearm, that the firearm is incapable of being fired. Such a device should ideally be inexpensive, positive in its effect, and easy to use, and should allow the firearm to be made safe without thereby exposing internal working parts of the action to contamination. Additionally, such a safety device should be easily removable so as to leave the weapon quickly able to be fired reliably.
Additionally, a safety device for use in training should, ideally, permit simulation of all normal operations required for use of the weapon, including practice in removing and replacing a magazine, with complete safety.